24 July 2008

Note: as I was only able to hang around this year's Indiana Microbrewers Festival for a couple of hours, I decided to recap the best way I know how: lazily.Best Indiana beer: the Green Tea Pale Ale from Brass Monkey. Slightly citrusy, really refreshing on such an ungodly hot day. I went back, um, a lot for this one.

Best regional beer: the Hoppin’ Frog porter poured through coffee beans. Perfect balance of smooth and bitter with a fantastic nose.

Best beer I didn’t get to try: I had to duck out before the Dark Lord and Kentucky Breakfast Stout tappings. Sigh.

Best recommendation: Mat Gerdenich’s recommendation to try the firkin of Clipper City Hang Ten. A walloping weizenbock with a sweet, yeasty cling. Yum.

Best t-shirt sighting: this festival is like Pitchfork, except instead of ironic band tees, you get ironic brewing tees. I especially appreciated the Natural Ice baseball jersey, but the best one was our friend Erik’s Miskatonic Brewing shirt.Best smiling face behind the tap: Tony at Warbird, who kept chugging along good-naturedly even as lines got 50-60 deep.Best overheard question: “so what do you have that tastes like Miller Lite?” (in the firkin tent)

Best girl power moment: Gina, randomly recruiting someone for our roller derby team as we were waiting in line at Hoppin’ Frog

Best boy power moment: Mike, relaying the story of the Diamond Kings of Heaven Great Keg Blowing of ’08… with hand gestures.

Best merch: the “Show Me Your Growlers” shirts. Sadly, I can’t remember where they were from.

Best ‘gotcha’: the empty bottles lined up at the Brugge table. Torturous, Charlie!

I have to say my dad made a comment after we ran into you guys early on that he was not envious of you all wearing black t-shirts. But as Chris points out.. it did help when trying to find you later on.

I am realizing how many good beers I missed in the firkin tent. I only tried the Founders double dry hopped pale, which was good, but pales compared to some of the ones I missed. I won't make that mistake next year.

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